The Publishing Maintenance Working Group (PMWG) is pleased to announce the final update of the W3C Recommendation for EPUB® 3.3.

The publishing community has thoroughly tested these Recommendations. When presented for publication, support was unanimous among responding W3C Members. It is encouraging that several reviewers indicated that they produce or plan to produce products that use this specification.

Corrections made to EPUB Recommendations

This update introduces no new features. The changes clarify the language and bring it in line with related specifications. The PMWG reports:

• We fixed the epub:type attribute not allowed on links in SVG;
• We clarified the requirements for SVG embedded by inclusion and by reference; and
• We fixed our white space definition for the fixed layout viewport meta tag. This disallowed form feed, avoiding potential rendering issues.

What’s next for EPUB3?

The PMWG’s work continues with the next major revision to the EPUB 3 family of Recommendations. This upcoming version will add new normative features to the specifications. For more information, please refer to the Publishing Maintenance Working Group Charter.

The WG will take on these tasks:

• Ensuring a good experience when reading in dark mode
• Considering adding support for HTML in the EPUB package, and
• Standardizing practices for content like footnotes & endnotes.

New Task Forces: Digital Comics, and EPUB Annotations

The Digital Comics Task Force will explore how EPUB can better support comics creators and readers. This would include webtoons, manga, graphic novels, and similar content. Digital comics are often read as a continuous scroll on mobile devices. They are not usually separated into pages like a typical ebook. The TF will develop scrolling specifications for both ebook producers and ebook reading systems. Another important feature of manga and webtoons is serialization. Digital comics need new metadata so that people can find the next installment of their favorite manga.

Currently, people can annotate EPUBs within a reading system. But the annotation remains with the platform, not the publication. There are use cases for annotations stored within an EPUB package. Researchers could access their notes from multiple devices, and potentially export the annotations. Teachers would be able to share their perspective with students. Annotations are valuable in legal documents, too. Ebook reading platforms could benefit from making it easier for people to switch accounts. An EPUB Annotations Task Force will look into adding this long-requested feature to EPUB.

Accessibility in EPUB

The Accessibility Task Force and the Fixed Layout (FXL) Accessibility Task Force will continue their work. The FXL Accessibility Task Force is developing a techniques document. It will include specific models and examples. Since the current FXL EPUBS cannot be fully accessible, the TF will incubate ways around this with new technology. Additionally, they are tasked with bridging EPUB metadata to library and other publication data systems. This will ensure that people can find an ebook that suits their reading needs.

The Accessibility Task Force topics include moving from WCAG 2.0 to 2.1 or 2.2 as the floor specification. They will also look at metadata. New metadata is needed to identify publisher contacts for accessibility issues. The TF intends to develop a way to deterministically identify content by type. With that in place, people will know if they can access an ebook’s content.

Contact the group's co-chairs if you have an interest in one of these TFs and would like to contribute to the new EPUB specifications.

EPUB 3.4 working drafts

The Working Group has published the first working drafts of the EPUB 3.4 specification below. At this moment, the initial Working Drafts are essentially identical to the 3.3 versions, but the Working Group plans to evolve these documents to a standard in about two years.

• EPUB 3.4
• EPUB Reading Systems 3.4
• EPUB Accessibility 1.1.1

Congratulations to Matt Garrish, main editor; co-chairs Wendy Reid, Shinya Takami; co-editor and W3C staff contact Ivan Herman; and the entire Publishing Maintenance Working Group for this update.

The Publishing Maintenance Working Group has published an updated EPUB 3.3 Recommendation. EPUB® 3 defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file container. This specification defines the authoring requirements for EPUB 3 publications and represents the third major revision of the standard. The update includes a number of minor changes, primarily to clarify some details on the conformance requirements of EPUB 3 documents.

The Working Group has also published three First Public Working Drafts: EPUB 3.4, EPUB Reading Systems 3.4, and EPUB Accessibility 1.1.1. These drafts will eventually evolve into the next major version of the EPUB 3 standard (EPUB 3.4). For more information, please refer to the Publishing Maintenance Working Group Charter.

The Publishing Maintenance Working Group has proposed corrections to the W3C Recommendation of EPUB 3.3. EPUB® 3 defines a distribution and interchange format for digital publications and documents. The EPUB format provides a means of representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced web content — including HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file container. This specification defines the authoring requirements for EPUB publications and represents the third major revision of the standard.

Proposed corrections are marked in the document. Comments, including implementation experience, are welcome via GitHub through 10 March 2025.

The Publishing Maintenance Working Group has just published the Working Group Note EPUB Fixed Layout Accessibility. This document outlines the goals for EPUB accessible fixed layout ebooks while acknowledging the challenges unique to the EPUB Fixed Layout format.

EPUB Fixed Layout (FXL) publications, or publications where the print layout is preserved in the digital edition, have been around since before EPUB 3.0.1. These publications span a number of genres and types, from comic books, cook books, children's books, and more.

The main motivation behind creating fixed layout publications is the need to preserve the print layout of the book, either because of it's importance to the text (i.e., complex diagrams) or it's artistic purpose (i.e., illustrated text). However, these publications are often partially or completely inaccessible to people with print disabilities.

An accessible fixed layout EPUB file is one that meets the accessibility requirements of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2 level AA and EPUB Accessibility 1.1, including color contrast, reading order, font layout, structural navigation, metadata, and text alternatives.

This note serves to help EPUB creators, publishers, and reading systems address some of the common accessibility issues found in fixed layout content including navigation, reading order, and text alternatives. This document is a companion to EPUB Accessibility 1.1, specifically for fixed layout publications.

The Publishing Maintenance Working Group has just published the Group Note of The EPUB Accessibility exemption property. The exemption property allows EPUB creators to indicate that an EPUB publication that does not meet accessibility conformance requirements has an exemption under the applicable jurisdiction's laws.